Patrick Ecclesine/FOXThe appetizer was hot.
The penultimate episode of Hell's Kitchen was TV's most watched show among young adults, the latest Nielsen Media Research stats show.
Overall, the Fox cooking-and-yelling series averaged just over 8 million viewers, and finished 10th.
The installment featured finalists Louis Petrozza and Christina Machamer building their "dream" restaurants. Harsh taskmaster Gordon Ramsay makes his final call tonight, bringing to a close the show's fourth season.
Other ratings highlights from the TV week ended Sunday:
- NBC's America's Got Talent (12 million) was first in viewers in Hell's Kitchen's time slot, first in the weekly standings, third in the 18- to 49-year-old demo, and first among shows featuring an unqualified male stripper.
- At first glance, ABC's I Survived a Japanese Game Show (28th place, 6.3 million) barely survived its second week, with viewership down 21 percent. But it remained a top 10 show among young adults.
- NBC's Baby Borrowers (22nd place, 6.8 million) was also off from its premiere (14 percent). But it also remained a hit in the demo, finishing fifth there.
- Of the previous week's freshman phenoms, ABC's Wipeout (second place, 9.5 million; second place in the demo) held up the best.
- CBS' Swingtown (53rd place, 4.5 million) fell to a season low in viewers, despite the best efforts of the nation's cougars—the show was first in its time slot among 25- to 54-year-olds.
- CBS' CSI (12th place, 7.6 million), which had an irregular season, by its lofty standards, anyway, isn't exactly recovering in reruns. Then again, last Thursday, aka Fourth of July Eve, was an especially light viewing night. Even Fox's steady So You Think You Can Dance took a dive on that night (23rd place, 6.8 million).
- Can Antonio Sabato Jr. be ready for Beijing? NBC's Celebrity Circus (41st place, 5 million) scored more viewers than two out of the four prime-time hours of Olympic trials coverage, also on NBC.
- In cable, The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2.8 million) was ABC Family Channel's biggest debuting series ever, the network said, and star Molly Ringwald's biggest since, um, Townies.
- USA's Law & Order: Criminal Intent (4.9 million) represented for drama series; Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place (3.8 million) represented for comedies; the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees (4.1 million) represented for ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball—again.
- Lindsay Lohan long ago tired of the Disney crowd, but the Disney crowd hasn't tired of her. Even a more obscure Lohan effort—Life-Size, a 2000 TV-movie starring Lohan and Tyra Banks—put up solid numbers for Disney Channel. With 3.6 million viewers, it was the most watched movie in all of cable.
For the big four networks, it was another up week, save CBS, which won the week anyway in total viewers, averaging 6.3 million. Fox recorded its usual win in the 18-49 demo.
In cable, USA (2.8 million) was the most-watched prime-time network.
Here's a look at the 10 most watched broadcast network prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:
- America's Got Talent, NBC, 12 million viewers
- Wipeout, ABC, 9.5 million viewers
- Criminal Minds, 9.1 million viewers
- So You Think You Can Dance (Wednesday), Fox, 8.8 million viewers
- CSI: NY, CBS, 8.5 million viewers
- Two and a Half Men, CBS, 8.49 million viewers
- 60 Minutes, 8.2 million viewers
- House, Fox, 8.1 million viewers
- CSI: Miami, CBS, 8.032 million viewers
- Hell's Kitchen, Fox, 8.03 million viewers